Assignment 5: Semester Self-Reflection
Overview: This assignment asks you to compose a final, informal “essay” that reflects critically
on the reading, writing, and thinking you’ve done this semester and how your awareness of the
rhetorical situation has shaped your writing and learning processes. This final, informal “essay”
will tell a story, or a narrative, of your progress through the course and explore how you will use
the knowledge and skills you gained in CO150 in the future.
Purpose: Your purpose for writing this final, informal “essay” is twofold: to look back at the
progress you’ve made this semester and look forward to how you can use the skills you gained in
CO150 in the future. In looking back at the class, you will reflect on what you’ve learned over
the course of the semester as we’ve developed greater understanding of the rhetorical situation
and progressed through the stages of the conversation model, then you will articulate that
progress using critical rhetorical terms. As you look ahead to the rest of your college career, you
will consider how the knowledge you’ve gained in CO150, including what you’ve learned about
your own writing processes, will assist you in future endeavors.
Audience: Your audiences for this assignment are yourself and your instructor. Because this is a
self-reflection of your progress in the course, you are writing in large part for your own benefit—
so that you can understand where you began the course, where you ended it, how you got there,
and what you can take with you in the future. Your audience is also your instructor. Although
your instructor has read and is familiar with the work that you’ve done throughout the semester,
remember that it will be important to demonstrate for your instructor that you are able to
articulate in specific rhetorical terms the ways that you approached this semester’s work, and that
you’re able to illustrate this story with concrete evidence—such as quotes and paraphrases—
from your own body of work. You will therefore be critically reading and critically thinking
about your own work over the course of the semester.
Author: In many ways, this assignment emphasizes your role as a writer more so than any of
the others since you and your work are central to this assignment’s investigation and analysis. As
the author of this document, you will demonstrate for your reader that you have carefully
examined the work you’ve done this semester and considered both how individual tasks built on
each other and how the rhetorical situation throughout impacted the decisions you made as a
writer. To establish your ethos with your audience, you will need to integrate several concrete
examples from your own work as you discuss your progress during the semester.
Texts to Examine and Questions to Consider:
Course readings:
• What was your initial response to texts?
• How did subsequent texts change your impression of them?
• What questions arose from these texts?
• How did these questions motivate your research in Unit 3?
Major assignments:
• A1: Summary/Response
• A2: Open Letter
• A3: Stakeholder Analysis
• A4: Academic Argument
Strategies:
• Start by reviewing all your final versions of Assignments 1-4. Also look at workshop
feedback and instructor comments.
• Begin making chronological notes that chart your progress as a writer who is increasingly
aware of the rhetorical situation and how that awareness is integrated into your writing in
various ways as the semester progresses.
• As you review your body of work, pick out quotations and paraphrases that show how
you evolved as a critical reader, thinker, and writer throughout the semester. Use this as
evidence in your paper. You can cite this as a modified MLA style, indicating the
assignment in parentheses after the quotation or paraphrase.
• Write a reflection that expresses this evolution, especially of critical rhetorical
approaches.
• Include the answer to the following question: How do you best function as a writer and
how will this knowledge carry you through your academic career?
Paper Length: approximately 1000 words
Due Date: Friday, May 13
th, by 11:59 p.m. MDT
Worth: 10% of your final course grade
**NOTE: At the end of your paper, include the following honor pledge: “I have not given,
received, or used any unauthorized assistance.”
Excellent Satisfactory Unsatisfactory
Examination of critical
reading and writing: The
reflection shows thoughtful
examination of the student’s
critical reading and writing. The
student connects the early
thinking they did to later
assignments and reveals how
their thinking evolved
throughout the entire course.
Although the reflection does
reveal that the student has
thought about their own
critical reading and writing,
the examination could be
more thorough. Connections
among early and later
assignments could be more
complete.
The reflection does not show that
the student has thought critically
about their own reading and
writing throughout the
semester. There are few, if any,
connections between early
assignments and later thought
processes or the connections
made are surface-level and do not
show critical reflection.
Rhetorical awareness: The
student uses critical rhetorical
vocabulary to describe their
evolution throughout the
course. The student charts their
growing awareness of the
rhetorical situation and explores
how their understanding of the
rhetorical situation was
integrated into assignments.
The student has included
some critical rhetorical
vocabulary to describe their
progress, although the
discussion could be more
clearly explained and/or could
make more obvious the
student’s understanding of the
impact of the rhetorical
situation.
The student does not use critical
rhetorical vocabulary to chart
their progress, or the concepts are
only briefly included with no
connection to the rhetorical
situation and its importance.
Looking ahead: The reflection
clearly shows that the student
has considered how they best
function as a writer and how that
knowledge will carry them
through the rest of their
academic career.
The student may need to
explain in more concrete
terms how they best function
as a writer and to make more
explicit how this knowledge
will carry them through the
rest of their academic career.
The reflection does not show that
the student has carefully
considered how they function best
as a writer.
Narrative and Evidence: The
self-reflection is a clear narrative
that tells the story of the
student’s thinking and writing
throughout the semester. Rather
than simply charting what was
done, the student’s narrative
focuses on what the student
learned and connections that
were made. The student has used
concrete evidence from their
own writing to explore this
evolution and use specific
rhetorical terms to articulate the
changes in their thinking and
writing.
Though the student has
attempted to write a narrative
of their thinking, at times the
explanations of the evolution
could be clearer and fluid.
The reflection may lapse into
discussions of what was done,
rather than what was learned
throughout the course. The
piece includes some specific
evidence from the student’s
own writing but would benefit
from more evidence and/or
better explanation of that
evidence.
The reflection is not a narrative of
the student’s changes in
thinking/writing and/or the
reflection is simply a re-cap of
what was done in the course,
rather than a narrative of what
was learned in the course. The
reflection includes little or no
direct evidence from the student’s
own writing.
Conventions & Style The
language, tone, and voice of the
reflection are those of a careful
and critical reader, and the essay
is edited for clear
communication that is free of
distracting errors.
While the reflection could be
more carefully edited for
style, it is generally clear and
readable.
Because of poor editing and/or
style choices, the reflection is
confusing or unclear for readers.
